How Monopoly taught us greed

One of lifersquos earthshaking questions when we were boys was about how much people knew about countries other than theirs As Indians we were champions of trivia and knew all sorts of things about places we had never visited outside India I could hold forth about the Empire State Building Manhattan Londonrsquos Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden as though I lived next doorBut would a Britisher know where Dhobi Ghat Khotachiwadi and Dombivli wereWe knew the answer of course White people could not even pronounce our long and winding names much less remember them unless they were Anglicised out of shape How did we know so much about them British authors such as PG Wodehouse helped introduce us to British culture mores and topography movies like My Fair Lady did their bitBut much more than that it was a dicebased board game that just about everybody played Called Monopoly it taught us how to buy property build houses charge rent and become obscenely rich Players received startup money for buying and selling prime real estate We could scoop up entire London localities and streets like Piccadilly Euston Charing Cross Oxford Street and Savile RowLetrsquos talk about Bombai Click the QR code above to join my WhatsApp group to share your Bombai stories for my bookmdashand perhaps answer some of my Bombai questionsAn Indian version was released soon and we found ourselves picking up Charni Road Churchgate Byculla Colaba Marine Lines Dadar Sion and so onBut Monopoly subtly taught us something else capitalism and the power of money Generations of children learned how to acquire property fill it with condos and hotels and charge fellow players obscene rents The gamersquos goal was ludicrously simple accumulate as much money and property as possible monopolise the market and bankrupt everyone else Be ruthless compete savagely think only about yourself and win at all costsSounds like Mumbai today doesnrsquot itMonopoly gave us a crash course in unrestrained freemarket ideology It taught us how to stop thinking about people and focus on money instead It taught us greedDid it Really Many people I know are neither very rich nor very greedy no matter how much they loved Monopoly I played the game too and Irsquom as poor as a church mouse Can a board game really indoctrinate players with a political ideologyMonopolyrsquos littleknown inventor an outspoken American rebel called Lizzie Magie might have gone to jail without passing Go or collecting 200 if she could see what they have done to her game When she launched it in 1904 it was called The Landlordrsquos Game and its goal was to introduce players to the evils that follow when robberbarons monopolise property and fleece poor people to enrich themselvesThe game did this with two sets of rules Under the lsquoProsperityrsquo rules every player received wealth when someone acquired new property mirroring a landvalue tax that benefits everyone Everyone won the game collectively when the poorest player doubled their starting money Under the lsquoMonopolistrsquo rules the winner was the property owner who bankrupted everyone elseMagie hoped this would demonstrate the perils of unfettered capitalist land grabsThe Landlordrsquos Game was popular and spread informally among leftwing intellectuals and Quaker communities but struggled to go mainstream It taught important lessons but it just wasnrsquot as much fun as crushing poor people underfoot while becoming fabulously richIn 1935 an unemployed salesman called Charles Darrow left out Magiersquos prosperity rules and sold the game to Parker Brothers calling it Monopoly and passing it off as his own The game took over the market like a forest fire spreading its one message Chase wealth and crush your opponents if you want to come out on topMonopoly rewards those who enrich themselves with an incentive structure that leaves no room for mercy or sharing mdash you either dominate or lose Social psychologist Paul Piff notes that even in shortterm play Monopoly brings out a streak of ruthless behavior In lsquoriggedrsquo experiments where one player is given a starting advantage like extra cash or more dice rolls the ldquorichrdquo player rapidly becomes more aggressive and less empathetic gleefully trashtalking his struggling opponentTheyrsquore playing Monopoly all over Mumbai today and the rules have not changed Only this time they donrsquot need boards Real estate developers are the wealthiest most powerful people in the city now and their money is bending rules subverting policy and reshaping the city to their profit Everything is up for grabs Anyone who gets in the way is in for a harrowing timeAs in the board game a single individual can buy up entire localities like Kalina or Kurla and construct on it charging exorbitant prices and fleecing those who buy or rent from him A thriving community like Dharavi can be bought up by one man and razed to the ground while its poorest occupants either stuffed into a single tall building provided they meet certain lsquocriteriarsquo or separated from their families and exiled to distant salt pansAmericarsquos legendary real estate investor Warren Buffett used to play Monopoly as a boy His younger sister Bertie Buffett Elliot who played with him says she always lost but Warren was intensely competitive ldquoHe won everything every timerdquoHe still doesYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper